Cydia

Reports of Apple axing recent hires at the companyís retail locations have started to flood the interwebs.

Apple store employees reached out to MacRumors over the past few weeks saying recent hires are being laid off in the U.K. and at select locations around the world while part-time employees are getting less hours. Reports are now beginning to surface in the U.S. and Canada that part-time staff are seeing less hours, including long-term cutbacks.

Some of the claimed U.K. cuts are rather drastic including once store that reportedly axed all employees with less than six months of experience and even a number of recent hires who just finished training. Another U.K. report claims three groups of recent trainees have been laid off as well.

Veteran employees have also received the proverbial shaft with Apple bumping number of recently-promoted employees back down to their original positions. U.S. employees havenít experience mass layoffs yet, but reports of Apple cutting down part-time employee hours drastically have surfaced with some cuts down to zero hours being reported.

Apparently Appleís back-to-school sales arenít proving lucrative enough, or the companyís retail force is becoming more efficient. Itís tough to justify the most profitable company in the world dumping thousands of employees, especially with the holiday retail season around the corner. Oh and the launch of the iPhone 5. Hopefully Apple doesnít pull a Best Buy and hire droves of clueless seasonal help this fall.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

While I'm sure we all appreciate your blatantly obvious attempt at trolling, you can argue all you want that Apple isn't innovative but the one thing that you can't argue is that they're not profitable. So, I'd find a different thread to work that angle.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

Yeah what an idiot statement. The iPhone still out sells any of these so called "innovative" phones by 10-1 regardless of how much each phone is upgraded from the previous version.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

Oh and you know all this how? You work at apple HQ? Ohhhh apple isnt being innovative THATS why SAMSUNG is being the one sued for copying them apple products.

Oh and apple laying off some employees means that all those billions of cash reserves are now useless. Samsung isn't making nearly as much off of one single smart phone or series as apple is. They only own the industry cause they sell 1000 different phones but that doesn't mean they make profit on them.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

Fantastic news NOT. Its hard enough trying to buy something in a UK Apple store as it is with not enough staff available even in quiet hours, this is just going to make it worse. Looks like Apple are lowing their customer service to the typical low standard in the UK

Here we go with the trolls again. How is the Galaxy S III leaving Apple in the dust?? Apple still have a new phone and tablet to showcase and it will be at least a month before anyone can attempt a statement like that. Know what you're talking about @stevelucky. Not everyone wants or needs a bigger screen. It is a direction that Android went when all they had was hardware updates to compete and now its a standard. Innovation means a company is making or creating new and unseen products for users. What innovation has Android made? Bigger screens, more RAM, bigger phones?? I just don't get your point. Most phones made now mimik the iPhones design(a blatant rip off) People are buying Android tablets cause they thought they were purchasing an iPad...hahahaha! Come back when you have a real argument.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

I'm not exactly sure what you talking about. Apple phones are strong. They support the latest operating system for at least 3 years. Two years from now you won't even see the s3 in the free/refurbished section when purchasing a new phone.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

It's more than just a few upgrades, the quality of the apps is also a factor. Most new apps and games are available in ios first, and by the time it gets to samsung there outdated, also ios is by far a better operating system than whatever type of food samsung names it operating system this week. My brother has a samsung and he updated to whatever the name of the operating system is ver 4.0 and he says he wished he could downgrade, it messed up the phone big time and he had to wait for a fix to come out, yet for ios when a fix is release is to patch up a jailbreak loophole. Also we only need 1 model of a phone a year, samsung needs to make 20 models of the same phone because 1 alone can't do it all.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

I also agree! God forbid you say anything negative about Apple, unless you want insults from the Apple fanboys on this forum!
SMH!

I to agree with the lack of innovation from Apple. And while they have been able to give their customers just enough to shut them up for another year, soon it will catch up to them. And while i still believe the iPhone 5 will be a meager success due to the droves of people that sell their previous iPhones for the new one.....i do not think it will be as popular as the iPhone 4 was in its initial release.

Not to rain on anyone's troll parade here, but in spite of any innovations or lack thereof, and if we can for the sake of the argument simply assume that this report is true, the most likely cause for it would not be innovation or competition, but rather the extremely lackluster economy in America, and around the world. It is actually amazing how well Apple has done in spite of the economy. And, any time - literally any time - I go in the Apple store, there are nearly as many blue-shirted people walking around as customers. And, there are a lot of customers.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

Well what do you expect happens when a company stops being innovative? Phones like galaxy S III and the upcoming note2 are leaving Apple in the dust. The last 4 iPhones have been nothing but small upgrades, 3G, 3S, 4, & 4S. The iPhone 5 will be just that, a small upgrade. A faster phone & FINALLY a bigger screen. Apple had there chance to be king of the smart phone industry. But no, they rather spend all their time in court fighting over nonsense.

Dude you struck a nerve. You've been copied quite a few times. For the first time, I've left the iphone for the Galaxy S3 and it is very awesome. Skipped the iphone 4s because it was not a big enough upgrade. Then when my iphone 4 crashed, I thought ok I will give something new a try and I am not dissapointed. My wife still owns the iphone 4 so she is waiting for the next iphone. It had better be a bigger jump then what Apple has done in the past or she is going to jump ship also.

Own plenty of Apple stuff but am always just looking for what is the best. Right now I would take the Galaxy S3 over the iphone. Will have to see if they step up their game. But back to your original statement. Apple stop already with the small upgrades. One of my friends said that Apple has the greatest marketing scheme. Actually convience you to pay more and get less. After using the S3 for a month I would have to agree.

With all this being said, and buying 8 iphones since the first one in my family. I will now shop around before just buying the next Apple product just because of the name. Companies are catching up and in some case passing.

Dude you struck a nerve. You've been copied quite a few times. For the first time, I've left the iphone for the Galaxy S3 and it is very awesome. Skipped the iphone 4s because it was not a big enough upgrade. Then when my iphone 4 crashed, I thought ok I will give something new a try and I am not dissapointed. My wife still owns the iphone 4 so she is waiting for the next iphone. It had better be a bigger jump then what Apple has done in the past or she is going to jump ship also.

Own plenty of Apple stuff but am always just looking for what is the best. Right now I would take the Galaxy S3 over the iphone. Will have to see if they step up their game. But back to your original statement. Apple stop already with the small upgrades. One of my friends said that Apple has the greatest marketing scheme. Actually convience you to pay more and get less. After using the S3 for a month I would have to agree.

With all this being said, and buying 8 iphones since the first one in my family. I will now shop around before just buying the next Apple product just because of the name. Companies are catching up and in some case passing.

See! This is good news! It's good that companies are innovating; it's good that Apple is needing to do more; it's good that we have competition!!!

Personally, I just got an ASUS Transformer Prime (on trade for an iMac) and it's okay but not as user-friendly as I'd like. Although 'I' can adapt to electronics, my family isn't as tech savvy. The iPhone/iPad are easy to use and that's why I think it's the preferred device. That said, the iOS UI is still smoother, although I'm sure the SIII has improved since the Ice Cream OS...

I'm sticking w/ iPhone cuz of simplicity. If that makes me a 'fanboy,' then so be it! BUT, if there comes a time when we can't jailbreak anymore...then I might start looking elsewhere.